India’s Sex Guru: The Problem is Ignorance

Here in the land that gave the world the Kama Sutra, newspaper readers regularly barrage sex guru Mahinder Watsa with an unlikely question: Can kissing make you pregnant?

“Parents don’t talk about it. Society looks down on it,” says Dr. Watsa, an 89-year-old retired gynecologist who pens a daily advice column on sex and sexuality for the Mumbai Mirror. “The problem is ignorance.”

Hundreds of letters flood in a week for Dr. Watsa, India’s answer to Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Is lemon juice and papaya effective for birth control? What are the best days to have sex if you want to conceive a child?

Sitting in the study of his second-floor apartment, Dr. Watsa drafts his responses every morning, dispatching the facts with a wry – and sometimes ribald – sense of humor that has helped him win a wide following.

One recent day, he responded to a query from someone who wrote: “After having sex four times a day, I feel weak the next day. For about five minutes, my vision goes blank and I can’t see anything properly. Please help.”

Dr. Watsa’s answer: “What do you expect? Shouts of hurray and I am a champion?”

Clearly Indians know a thing or two about sex. After all, there are 1.2 billion of them. But what they don’t know can cause failed marriages and mental illness, said Dr. Watsa, who’s been writing his column for eight years.

“Sometimes you get people who you would never expect would have a problem, like dentists for example. I’ve had people come to me who have been married for 10 years and have yet to consummate the marriage,” said Dr. Watsa.

Some of the couples he counsels tell him they avoid sex because they fear it is unhygienic or will cause internal injuries, attitudes he attributes to a widespread lack of sex education in India.

Traditional sources of information sometimes do more harm than good, he said, pointing to the 10th-century Khajuraho temple, which is decorated with sculptures of couples entwined in exotic – and acrobatic – poses.

The temple, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, is a popular destination for Indian honeymooners.

“If people tried some of the tricks shown there, I don’t think they’d last very long — standing on their head and all that,” said Dr. Watsa a slightly built balding man, who wears his pants hiked up above his waist.

Several lawsuits have been filed against the Mumbai Mirror, accusing the paper of promoting obscenity with Dr. Watsa’s column, “Ask the Sexpert,” said Meena Baghel, Dr. Watsa’s editor at The Mumbai Mirror.

“I often meet young parents who say they cut out the column from the paper before they let their children read it,” said Ms. Baghel. “But of course they all read his column.”

One man wrote that he is only aroused by “images of my favourite Hollywood actresses and singers. Is it wrong to fantasize only about foreign stars and not Bollywood actresses?”

Dr. Watsa’s response: “You are the boss. It’s up to you to decide whether, when the D-Day of your marriage arrives, you will run an advertisement in Hollywood newspapers.”

In general, the doctor is open-minded and accepting of readers’ tastes. Asked whether a fondness for arm pits is unhealthy, he answered, “You could do worse.” As for spanking, it’s normal “as long as it doesn’t hurt you.”

Often letter-writers are confused and unsure who to ask about their problems.

“Sometimes, I watch gay porn. I also get attracted to boys. But I am not gay. My wife and I are planning to have a baby. Will my baby get affected by my behaviour? Is there a chance my child will become gay?” wrote one.

Dr. Watsa responded that the “baby will in no way be affected.”

At times, the letters display a potentially dangerous lack of knowledge. A 26-year-old man said he was considering cutting the nerves around his testicles “using a plier-like tool” like that used on bulls, to cure premature ejaculation.

“You are not a bull, but I am sorry to say just as ignorant,” Dr. Watsa answered. Castration, he said, won’t help the problem.

Few schools in India teach sex education. And misinformation about sex abounds.

The Sablok Clinic, one of Delhi’s oldest sex clinics, says on its website that excessive “hand practicing” prevents male genitalia from fully developing. It also says wet dreams are “undoubtedly injurious to one’s health.”

Indeed, misconceptions about sex are so deep rooted that there are psychiatric disorders unique to India, including one termed Dhat syndrome.

Traditional Ayurvedic beliefs hold that sperm is produced from blood, and people fear that emitting sperm will weaken them and make them ill – echoing Gen. Jack Ripper’s obsession with “precious bodily fluids” in Dr. Strangelove.

Dhat sufferers “believe that that if they lose semen apart from through intercourse, then it is a loss of masculinity,” said Om Prakash, a psychiatrist who treats patients with the disorder.

“I answered one person the other day, saying that this is the zillionth time that I am answering this question on masturbation,” Dr. Watsa said.

“It’s going to deplete the sperm; it’s going to make me bald, any number of things,” Dr. Watsa said. “Anything that goes wrong with them is blamed on masturbation.”

“He’s really funny,” said Sonali Khan, the Between the Sheets columnist for Open magazine. “You have to have a sense of humor if you do what he does; he answers the most inane questions.”